Maelok the Dreadbound

The gatorman warlock known as Maelok the Dreadbound exists in a torturous state of undeath as an animated corpse bound to the will of another. Despite his decaying physical form, Maelok is still a mighty bokor who can return slain allies to life, steal the souls of the living, or connect to the spirit world to transform his army temporarily into ghostly horrors unimpeded by flesh, stone, or steel.

Return to Play one friendly Faction Grunt model anywhere in the caster's CTRL range, in formation, and completely within 3" of another model in its unit. The Grunt returns with 1 hitpoint and must forfeit its Combat Action this turn.

Maelok is a brick caster who excels at running Gators. Death Pact brings the Posse up to ARM 18 (20 in melee), and his feat raises that by two. An army of ARM 22 multi-wound models on feat turn is very very tough for many armies to deal with.

Maelok's feat is an attrition or assassination feat - turning your entire army incorporal for the turn allows most of it to charge straight through enemy defences and into their caster. (Or just into their back lines). On the other hand +2 ARM for an already tough army is nothing to sniff at. It's probably best used as the lines meet to dig deep and wreck.

Death Pact is a backbone spell Maelok casts almost every turn. +2 ARM for all infantry? Yes please.

Soul Harvester is just nice against infantry, allowing Maelok to cast more spells. Like Mortality.

Mortality is an excellent debuff for when you need it.

Venom is a great magical attack.

Revive is probably too expensive unless you've had a soul-bonanza or have somewhere really awkward to put your revived model.

... but not by "lingering" secondary damage (such as the cloud left by Breath of Corruption). In this case the hazard is damaging the model, not the spell that put the hazard into play.

If a weapon/spell includes Magic Damage and another kind of elemental damage it can still damage Incorporeal models. Incorporeal models are not affected by the rule "if an attack does multiple types of damage and a model is immune to at least one it is immune to the entire attack."The phrase "immune to non-magical damage" should be interpreted as "immune to damage that doesn't include Damage Type: Magical" (not interpreted as "has immunity to Corrosion and Electricity and Cold and etc.")

Warcasters/Warlocks can't cast spells or use their feat while resolving Impact Attacks. Because Impact Attacks occur during movement - you can use spells or feat before moving, or after moving, but not during movement.

Exception: If your Impact target(s) include your charge target, then your movement has ended (refer rulebook, last paragraph of 'Impact Attacks') and thus you're fine to use "any time" abilities before starting the Impact attacks.

Even though they're warcasters, if they're out of formation they suffer the normal penalties (can't make attacks, actions, spells, etc).

They can't upkeep each other's spells.

They can only dominate one SteamRoller scenario element at a time.

Each warlock/warcaster can have different upkeeps on them if those upkeeps are "target SELF" or "target model". If you cast an upkeep that is "target model/unit", that is the only upkeep any of them can have.

If you can return multiple troopers at once, they don't all have to be the same unit. Spread the love around.

Troopers must return to their original unit. Even if you have two units of the same type (such as two units of Convergence Eradicators) then you can't have 4 die from unit [A] and return them all to unit [B].

If your rule is something like "return d3 models to units within CMD range" (Old Witch3) then it is d3 models total, not d3 models to each and every unit.

If your rule is something like "spend 1 soul to return 1 Grunt" (Enigma Foundry) then it doesn't matter where the souls came from originally. Think of them like currency, in this case.

Troopers are placed sequentially, and you can leap frog the "within 3" of another model in its unit" requirement.

You can Return models even after a unit is reduced to just Attachments (Weapon or Command)

If your Return ability lets you return a Leader or Officer model, then they will immediately become the unit commander and redefine the "in formation" bubble.

If your Return ability only allows Grunts, then the Grunt will not be field promoted when he arrives. This means that, in the unusual scenario where the Leader model has different wargear to the Grunts (such as Cygnar Stormguard), then that wargear is effectively 'lost'.